The Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine is planning to conduct investigatory actions with former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, including questioning, from January 24, after the ex-premier decides on her lawyers.

The head of the main department for investigating particularly important cases at the Prosecutor General's Office, Andriy Kurys, said at a briefing in Kyiv on Monday that Tymoshenko had not yet decided on which defense lawyers will defend her in criminal proceedings concerning the killing of MP Yevhen Scherban in 1996 and embezzlement.

"Yulia Volodymyrivna [Tymoshenko] said she needed three days to decide on her defense lawyers. We expect that on Thursday, Yulia Volodymyrivna will tell us who will defend and represent her interests in the criminal proceedings," Kurys said.

He said that under the new Criminal Procedure Code, a person who is given notification of being suspected of having committed a crime has "reasonable time" to decide on his or her defense team.

As reported, Ukraine's Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka said at a briefing on January 18 that the Prosecutor General's Office had finished its investigation into the criminal case on the murder of MP Yevhen Scherban, who was shot dead in 1996, and that former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko had been notified of being suspected of having organized the crime, along with former Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko.

Pshonka added that the Ukrainian government had started paying the debt of the UESU to the Russian Defense Ministry under a ruling of Kyiv Court of Appeals. According to him, Ukraine has paid UAH 15 million to Russia.

Scherban, a member of the Liberal Party's executive committee and a parliamentarian, was gunned down while disembarking from a plane at Donetsk airport on November 3, 1996. The killers fled the scene in a car. Scherban, his wife and a mechanic died from injuries on the spot. The plane's flight engineer suffered injuries to his neck and later died in a hospital. Law enforcement agencies ruled out a political motive behind the crime.

The Luhansk Regional Court of Appeals found Vadym Bolotskykh guilty of killing Scherban and sentenced him to life in prison in April 2003.

Yevhen Scherban's son, Ruslan Scherban, a member of the Donetsk Regional Council, said at a press conference on April 4, 2012 that he had passed to the Prosecutor General's Office documents indicating Tymoshenko's and Lazarenko's possible involvement in his father's murder.

Tymoshenko and Lazarenko have categorically denied being involved in the murder.